Where the West Ends?
Nadim Samman: Go West!

This paper will consider the reception of émigré post-Soviet Russian artists in the United States of America, in the decades prior to and following the collapse of the U.S.S.R.

It will examine conditioning factors in the various fortunes of individuals such as Rimma & Valery Gerlovin, Ilya Kabakov, Komar & Melamid and more, outlining hegemonic critical discourses which allowed some figures to sink into obscurity while others were catalpulted into Biennales, Guggenheims and beyond. It will also comment on the debt that Russian art history owes to American collectors of post-Soviet art, before considering whether this debt may yet be a poisoned chalice.

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